My toaster broke... which is sad for any number of reasons. Firstly it is not the first appliance in my kitchen to choose this winter to cease functioning, my freezer is also broken.

Unfortunately unlike my freezer the toaster is not even properly broken. My freezer broke spectacularly - instantly turning from a ice palace to a fetid cave of rotting food seeming far quicker than said food would turn in the wild.

I went in for some frozen peas which were well and truly thawed and thought 'huh?, the freezer isn't working'. So I changed the fuse in the plug at which point the freezer started fizzing and hissing, something I took to be a bad sign. As the limit of my electrical appliance knowledge had now been reached I left the wall switch off and left my wife a note telling her under no circumstances should it be turned on.

Less than a day later I found the switch was on and the freezer was again broken. All of which should be very sad, but it isn't. In fact I've got by without a freezer for about 2 months now. I drink red wine and scotch instead of the polish vodka which used to reside in the freezer, and I use up all the food which used to get bunged in the freezer to be forgotten about while I ordered up Chinese.

All in all my life has been improved by the lack of frozen foods, and while I realise it can't continue forever and that making your own pizza dough isn't going to continue to be fun I'm comfortable that when I finally buy another freezer I will have learnt and grown as a person.

This heart warming tale is nothing like the experiences with my toaster. I loved my toaster like a son. It is small enough to perfectly perch on my window sill but large enough to accommodate the gargantuan slices of toast that get me through the morning. It is metal so it burns your hand if you are stupid enough to touch it and cost less than a tenner from a supermarket. For 5 years it has been the perfect centre of my kitchen... and now its broke.

Unlike my freezer it hasn't broke properly, it still toasts. Which means that Iâ€™m unlikely to ever replace it as doing so would be an unjustified expense and definitely an unjustified trip to a shop.

The problem is that where there used to be a reassuring pop, a satisfying end to the toasting. A pop loud enough to make its presence felt 2 rooms away over the top of the TV meaning that you never missed the instant of perfect toast when the bread is hot enough to melt even well refrigerated butter on contact. Other people thought it was intrusively loud, equating it even to the great Talkie Toaster of Red Dwarf in terms of sheer presence.

But those days are behind us now... illness has struck my beloved who now can only cough politely like a properly opened bottle of fine champagne. Worse still he is unable to raise his arms more than an inch so the element remains hot out of his control and burns your bread.

I worry that he is doing this on purpose, that one day the wife will come home to find my prone on the floor, the room filled with thick black crumpet smoke.

A toaster is fine if you're toasting sliced bread. It's crap if you're toasting a bap, the bread gets stuck instead of popping out, and you either burn your fingers or have to let it go cold to get it out.

Rover the Top wrote:A toaster is fine if you're toasting sliced bread. It's crap if you're toasting a bap, the bread gets stuck instead of popping out, and you either burn your fingers or have to let it go cold to get it out.

I stand by my recommendation. Don't be deceived, that Russell Hobbes may only be a two slot toaster, but it has the heart and soul of a 4 slotter. Plus it's about 40cm long which is great for ciabattas.

I think the humble toaster is the best invention since err... sliced bread. I too have suffered a recent bereavement in the kichen appliance department regarded the bread toasting facility. With half the element not working it was damned inconvienent to have to toast one side then flip it round and toast the other side. However my recent acquisition of a replacement device suitable for all forms of toasted items as relieved a great feeling of stress from my lifestyle as i feel i can now confidently toast without one side being more toasted than the other. I must admit the choice of replacing my old faithful toaster with a new one must rank along side other stressful activities like moving house and changing job etc. After mourning the pass of old toaster i feel can now move on and concentrate on Soup making and perfecting my Spag bol recipe.

30 FUCKING QUID? Are you insane? Does it brew up for you as well as boil water? When my kettle broke, I replaced it with the cheapest one Tesco had on offer. I can understand a difference of quality in toaster, but there ain't much to vary when it comes to boiling water...

It's all about boiling quietly without vibrating accross the counter, having an easy to fill lid, having a good easily readable gauge on the side so you can tell at a glance how much is in there, and economy of electricity use.